


A Briefing on Failure and Beating the Odds

by hiddencait



Category: Dredd (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-24
Updated: 2015-11-24
Packaged: 2018-05-03 05:28:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5278481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/pseuds/hiddencait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anderson finally asks Dredd why he passed her after the events at Peach Trees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Briefing on Failure and Beating the Odds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [infiniteeight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/infiniteeight/gifts).



> For some reason, no matter what I try, I cannot write these two shippy - I ship them like FedEx, but getting it down on paper just doesn't work! Hopefully my giftee doesn't mind the gen, instead.
> 
> Also, credit where it is due, I was very much inspired by certain statistics in the Beka Cooper Terrier book by Tamora Pierce. I won't mention which as it would be a spoiler for this tale, but that book definitely gave me a bit of insight for this fic. I hope it translates over well!
> 
> And much love to my darling beta *name redacted*!

“Sir, why did you pass me?”

 

The question didn’t seem to shock Dredd, but it was hard to tell for sure. His helmet remained a visible barrier, and one Anderson still hesitated to breech with her mind without explicit permission. 

 

They stood side by side supervising the meat wagon that rolled up, the moment one of the only real ‘rest’ Dredd ever allowed himself, and in turn Anderson, while on duty. A line of bodies awaiting re-syk littered the dingy hallway of one more mega block in the long list of blocks they’d had the honor of clearing of the rest of Ma-Ma’s Slo-Mo business. Most of the perps had died in various turf wars even before the Hall of Justice sent the pair in to deal with the fall out. Dred and Anderson had the "pleasure" of arriving in the middle of the power vacuum the clan in Peach Trees had left behind.

 

It hadn’t been easy; Ma-Ma’s enterprise had spread to Sectors Nine and Fifteen before her death. More than twelve mega blocks housed members of her clan, though none were near as overrun as Peach Trees had been under her control.   

 

Anderson supposed she should consider that a blessing, though it didn’t make it any less exhausting of a campaign. At least there were few doubters left to question her advancement from trainee to full Judge. Not with Dredd’s endorsement.

 

Well, few aside from Anderson herself, anyway. She hadn’t wanted to bring it up, to question why he’d bent his own rules to pass her. Even that first meeting, when he’d stood on one side of two-way glass with the Chief, Anderson had known he expected to fail her. Dredd was a legend, a paragon of devotion to the law, held up to the trainees as someone unfailing strict both in his judgements out in the field and inside the Hall of Justice when considering other Judges. The Chief didn’t often bring him in for an evaluation, but when he did, the trainee in question knew they’d have to be at the top of their game to earn a pass.

 

Even the best of their classmates had earned a fail from him on more than one occasion. Anderson knew she scraped the bottom of the barrel as far as most of her trainee class and instructors were concerned. The Chief Judge had pissed off more than a few by giving Anderson a chance at a field assessment at all.

 

That it was Dredd who’d be assigned to her assessment just meant she’d fail this, too.

 

Or so Anderson had guessed at the time.

 

Then they’d been in the thick of it with Ma-Ma’s clan coming for them, and she’d half forgotten to give a shit about passing her evaluation in the midst of just trying not to die and trying to make sure her partner didn’t die.

 

Not that she thought Dredd saw her as a partner. Not really.

 

Sure, they were working together now at the Chief’s assignment to finish out this mess since they’d started it with that first round of homicides. Anderson doubted that would have been Dredd’s choice if he’d been given one, but he hadn’t argued with the order at least.

 

Anderson had kept herself out of his head as much as she could unless a firefight at any given bust called for it. She hadn’t wanted to know his opinion of her, at least not on their second day out, when they’d first reunited after Peach Trees.

 

Now though, she couldn’t help giving in to her curiosity.

 

It was one of the traits that had most often pissed off her instructors when she was a trainee. She’d wanted to know “why” too often for their taste, but she’d found it had served her well out on the streets. The woman on Level 75 and the poor shit who’d been forced to work as Ma-Ma’s broken eyes: they were only the first two innocents she’d spared in the course of their work simply by wondering who they were and why, and then acting on the knowledge her gift gleaned from them to answer her questions. 

 

She wanted to know Dredd’s “why” now. Needed to know from him personally that she was really cut out for this work before the Slo-Mo cleanse wrapped up and they probably went their separate ways. Dredd had refused or flat out ignored all offers of a partner after the massive shits storm of his twin’s arrest and sentence to life in Iso in Mega City Two. Anderson didn’t flatter herself into thinking he’d put up with her shadow much longer than he had any of the other would-be partners foisted on him since then.

 

“Wondered if you would ask.” His gruff response drew her out of her thoughts and back to the question she’d posed. “Any of the other Judges asking the same question?”

 

Anderson shrugged and shook her head. “Mostly it’s muttering from the training class. Not anyone actively on the streets, though. No one but the Chief has brought it up personally, and she was just congratulating me.”

 

“Sounds about right. None of the street Judges would question it.”

 

Anderson gave him a questioning look, hoping he’d go on and wishing once again that he was the one missing his helmet so she could try for a hint at his mood from his facial features instead of being tempted to dip into his psyche.

 

“That reg in the assessment - it’s not about a pass or fail. It’s about losing your weapon.” He leveled a long look at her from behind his helmet, and Anderson thought there was something she was missing about the conversation but she didn’t know what. He thinned his lips. “Do you know the average life span for a Judge who loses their primary weapon?”

 

She shook her head after a moment searching her memory. “No. That’s not a statistic I remember from training.”

 

“It wouldn’t be. It’s part of the Year One Refresher Course.”

 

Anderson didn’t flinch, not quite, but it was a near thing. Trainees were told on their first day to memorize the fact that thirty eight percent of all rookies never made it to the end of their first year. Most died in the line of duty, but a small number… Well, she didn’t like to think about the fates they chose for themselves. Either way, making it to the refresher course was a rite of passage, the sign that a trainee wasn’t a rookie any longer. She’d heard rumors that Command kept some training off the books until then. She just hadn’t guessed it would be relevant to this line of conversation.

 

Dredd let out a short breath, almost impatient, or so she’d normally guessed. “Four minutes and twenty eight seconds. That’s the average a Judge lasts.”

 

He turned back to her and nodded slowly when he saw her understanding dawn across her face, then went on. “For a rookie, the average is a hell of a lot less. You could say that dying after you lose your weapon is an automatic fail.”

 

“Fair enough,” Anderson said, shaking her head and breathing out a long breath. A thought occurred to her. “How many Judges survive at all after losing their primary weapon?”

 

“Three percent.” She near gasped as he startled her with a wicked grin. She blinked, confused by the amusement she felt radiating off him, especially considering the subject they were discussing. He shrugged, the grin disappearing almost as fast as it appeared. “You were three points from a pass on your first assessment, weren’t you?”

 

With that, he turned on his heel and headed to his bike, leaving her staring after him, wondering if she’d actually caught him in a joke, albeit one that was morbid as hell, or if it all had been an elaborate hallucination. Anderson huffed out a laugh.

 

Either way, he’d passed her, hadn’t he? That was the important part.

 

Her comm beeped, informing her that Dredd was waiting for her. They had work to get back to.

 


End file.
